i've loved heavy gear since its beginnings. its a very "different" system, but its a fun game to play. the miniatures are top of the pops, and the background fluff is pretty cool, too. but(and i do hate that i have to say "but") the dp9 people sell a terrible overpriced product. everytime i turn around, theres a "new" rule book that "replaces" the last rulebook(that was just released a month previously). and the models, while very nice, are stupidly overpriced. even putting togeather a handful of gears for a smallish firefight will cost you some serious dough. and its just that "games workshop" mentality that keeps me from buying from them. heck, the used to sell the gears in single packs. now you have to buy by the squad. and thats expensive. this is'nt ment to be an attack on the dp9 folks. again, its a great system and the minis are top notch. but its alot to invest in this game. and for this working class hero, that sucks

I used to play the RPG back in the day.I liked how the combat system was brutal.

The first session saw all the PCs die as they thought it was D&D.

We started again and this time they used cover and hid and ran away and learnt bullets hurt.

The artwork was great and the whole game had a sleek slick feel.I bought a few gears to paint up but the roleplaying games never had any gears in them, it was about the SIU and politics and special ops.

It's a big shock when you've been used to Battletech for years quick and deadly, but great fun played a quick game with my son a few weeks ago, only lasted two turns turn one charge at each other, he tosses three grenades at me as he passes, luckily all miss .turn two I blaze him with AC fire and kill his pilot with a lucky crit .an equivalent BT game would have taken turn after turn of armour whittling .

Dynaman a PPC only does 10 points of damage, most BT mech heads have 3 internal structure and 9 armor points on the head. A BT mech can usually take a single PPC to the head and keep functioning with 2 internal structure points left. It takes an AC/20 or a Clan ER PPC to completely remove the head in BT.

Somewhere I still have my HG1e book, with the RPG setting mixed in with the tactical gaming.

It really works pretty well, but what has killed the game is releasing a new edition, and then a revised new edition a couple months later (to fix all the stuff that somehow didn't get caught in internal playtest).

That said, I still have a whole pile of Southern Gears that I need to finish.

I also am using some of the gears as the basis for making some 15mm scale Gasaraki Tactical Armors and Fakes. (HG legs and arms, scratchbuilt torsos&heads).

I lament the needing of the 1st/2nd Ed books for the RPG but it does not affect my liking the current blitz rules.

The core of the blitz rules is 7 years old (came out in 2006) with a cleanup/update in the release of the field manual- which really sped up the game and made it Right now, dp9 is slowly updating all the armies with their own guides so they can retire the Locked and Loaded book but that is going to take a bit of time- not fast enough for my taste but can't have everything.

If you haven't played the new rules, find someone to give you a demo or pull down the quick start off the website.

Good stuff.

(and no- I am NOT a sock puppet; I just enjoy the game alot and more than btech- which I played since battledroids. :) )